Quick video on the Baofeng UV-5RM. The voice inversion scrambler is an interesting feature, gives a basic level of COMSEC.

Some food for thought regarding COMSEC at the tactical level:

Based on what we know from UKR, the emphasis on SIGINT at the small unit level has become the top priority. Coming out of this war, regardless of outcome, will confirm a concept US Army SOF piloted and the USMC would later adopt with the Radio Recon Platoons - pairing a SIGINT asset with an advanced marksmanship asset for targeting in real time.

With regard to SIGINT, the targeting had been focused on two mutually exclusive tools: drones and the radios being implemented for fire and maneuver. That said both sides have relied upon digital waveforms (UKR/DMR, RUS/NXDN), both of which are easily targeted via direction finding.

UKR is a symmetric fight. This point is lost among many caught up in the drama of being contemporary. Such thinking does not in any way benefit the Guerrilla. Knowing that ground SIGINT assets will be trained primarily to target digital waveforms, remaining analog has a big value. Something as simple as a voice scrambler obscures your transmission just enough to conceal the message contents while remaining analog on a spectrometer (like the TinySA). It could very well cause an enemy to dismiss your traffic altogether, since it appears unsophisticated.

Not in any way saying this is an absolute, but it is however an idea thinking forward.

A quick preview of what I've been working on on another front. The secret is out: Brushbeater is launching an optics line in 2025. What you see here is a 2-10x44 FFP MOA scope and a fixed 3x mini.

The concept of the mini is to alleviate the issues of prismatic scopes with a tight eye box and fixed mount height, which has led to issues using a clip on thermal. This way you chose your mount height to tailor it to any weapons platform (such as the AK) and any enabler. The reticle on both are in MOAs to meet the needs of Civilian Riflemen and you create your own data based on any chosen round, not married to a specific BDC.

The 3x will also feature a PSO-style choke type rangefinder built into the reticle based on the success of our rangefinder cards.

Each optic will feature Japanese glass and come in at an every man price. I'm not competing for juicy contracts, I'm here to arm you.

A look at the working prototype of the reticle, inspired by IOR.

This is just the prototype reticle, the final one will have the rangefinder

2-10x44, FFP MOA scope. Very excited for this one